Items - Trade Unions, Ships, Town Halls & More

This guide describes the items available in Anno 1800 and breaks them down into several categories, showcasing the effects they have in-game, where to use them and some theory crafting as to why they are such powerful game-changing items to have, search for and acquire in each of your game sessions.

What Are Items & Why Use Them!

Note: Don't like to read? Use the table of contents in the right hand column to skip the babble. Sorry the guide is no longer updated, mainly because there feels like a few thousand items in the game now and it was too hard to keep up with it.

A great addition to Anno 1800 is the use of items that can change the way you not only layout your islands but can effect your strategies as well as the way you play your overall game.

From what I can gather, there are nine main categories of items that include your Trade Union, Ships, Military Ships, Steamships, Sailing Ships, Harbormasters Office, Town Hall, Character Items as well as Zoo and Museum items. Each category has different methods of acquiring items, for instance Trade Union items mainly come from quests offered by your citizens as where you can purchase ship items from various sources.

Trade Union items typically effect the way your production buildings operate, they offer bonuses such as productivity increases or worker reductions. Ship items include things such as movement speed increases or damage increases. Military Ship items typically increase your ships attack speed and/or range.

Harbormaster items can increase the rate of self-repair of your ships that are in range. Where as Town Hall items effect your citizens buildings providing you with benefits such as increased income per house or an increase in attractiveness.

Character Items are the largest mystery of the bunch and I have no clue what these items actually do, nor can I find other players who know what these items do other than being purely cosmetic. I theorize that maybe they slot into the Museum during late game or may somehow play a part in the final tier of citizens but time will uncover this mystery. If you know the secret, please let us know in the comments.

Items should be taken seriously, they provide substantial game-play benefits and as far as I can tell Trade Union items are somewhat RNG related, meaning each new game-play session you could wind up using them in different ways. For instance in one game the first item I acquired was the Baker, which eliminated the need to have Flour Mills but in a later game my first item was a Canner that reduced the workers needed for the cannery building.

Fundamentally previous Anno games had you laying out production buildings around a Warehouse, while this still holds true, buildings such as the Trade Union and Town Hall also need to be factored into your decisions in order to maximize the potential of certain buildings.

To date I've discovered about 105 items in the game but I know there are many many more waiting to be found and I'll do my best to update the guide as I discover them. I do enjoy the additional game-play they offer and I hope they continue to expand upon them in the upcoming DLCs.

Let me know about items I've missed and your thoughts about the use of items in the comments below.

Trade Union Items

The Trade Union building can be acquired once you reach the Workers (2nd) tier and enables you to slot 3 different items into each Union building. Depending on the item used, the Trade Union can have a substantial effect on the other buildings you place inside of it's radius.

For instance, the Baker (shown here) was one of the first items I acquired during one of my games. As you can tell from the image, this item replaces the need to have a Flour Mill (as long as the Bakeries are inside the Trade Unions influance ring).

Each Flour Mill I didn't have to build saved me 50 income. I made sure that I built all of my Bakeries within range of this particular Trade Union in order to utilize this early game advantage. Then down the line I got and added the Epic item Patissier Patrice to this Trade Union that increased the productivity of all Bakeries effected by this Trade Union by 40%. A pretty large increase.

As of writing this I have found 42 Trade Union items but this only scratches the surface, I know there are plenty more to discover, let me know what you found in the comments below.

Common Items

Uncommon Items

Rare Items

Epic Items

Legendary Items

Town Hall Items

Common Items

Uncommon Items

Rare Items

Epic Items

Legendary Items

More Coming Soon...

Harbormaster Items

Common Items

Uncommon Items

Rare Items

Epic Items

Legendary Items

More Coming Soon...

Military Ship Items

Common Items

More Coming Soon...

Uncommon Items

Rare Items

Epic Items

Legendary Items

More Coming Soon...

Steamship Items

Common

More Coming Soon...

Uncommon

Rare

Epic

More Coming Soon...

Legendary

More Coming Soon...

Sailing Ships

Common

More Coming Soon...

Uncommon

More Coming Soon...

Rare

Epic

More Coming Soon...

Legendary

More Coming Soon...

Ship Items

Common Items

Uncommon Items

Rare Items

Epic Items

Legendary Items

More Coming Soon...

Zoo Items

Common Items

More Coming Soon...

Uncommon Items

Rare Items

More Coming Soon...

Epic Items

Legendary Items

More Coming Soon...

Museum Items

Common Items

More Coming Soon...

Uncommon Items

More Coming Soon...

Rare Items

Epic Items

More Coming Soon...

Legendary Items

More Coming Soon...

Character Items

[So Far Away]

With regards to Character Items, in Anno 1404 they were sometimes used as quest items for NPC's - so you needed to deliver the Standard Pirate Flag to Annie for a quest reward, once you had reached a certain diplomacy level. Not sure if 1800 will have the same...

[KoV]

Carpenter and baker are definitly must haves
As for town hall items the rare actor is great for your artians
Also there is a wiki with ALL the items

[KyGonKillYou]

Good guide - is it possible to add to this with regular production items as well with their effects on expeditions? I remember for example fur and fur coats work as items to give the hunting perk.

[dropbearmango]

I also have a engineer's character item if you would like for me to upload it

[dropbearmango]

I have a screen shot of a legendary harbormaster office uploaded if that helps

[Professor Rappy]

I noticed that those Items are quite powerful. Basically i managed to produce Tobacco just from stacking production and reduce cultivation area on Coffee, Cocoa and Rubber then in exchange they give some Tobacco + Grape, Potato and Red Pepper. Plus managed to produce Coffee + Chocolate in a very efficient way.
Chocolate sometimes produces Coffee ~ using Coffee not Sugar
Coffee and Plantain Factory sometimes produces Chocolate
Taco uses Fish Oil instead of Meat.
Cigar Factory uses Timber
Unfortunately those Trade Union costs so much Influence i really hope they make it cost 10 not 20.

[9yo-girlgamer]

I got one Epic character item that changes the input for soap factory to wood.
Since one of my IA is requesting soap, im crafting a ton of them. It generates a lot of cash

[Cookiesaurus]

Great guide friend!

[Whims]

As of right now no one really knows what Character Items are used for. My personal theory is that there used in the Museum building during the late game but I've yet to make it that far and test them.

Another real possibility is that there nothing more than cosmetic items created by the developers to add a little bit of flare and laughter to the game. I personally hope it's not that option because it's nice if they have a use.

A bit of a far fetched theory also is they may be used in Expeditions to unlock certain other rare or legendary items but from what I've read no one ever could verify this and in my opinion it's highly unlikely.

Another last moment thought is maybe there for one of the upcoming DLCs but as of right now it's still very much a guessing game but I will update this once I can find out more information as time moves on.

[Ordinis]

How to use character itmes? Or what are they for?